Lost Thoughts
by Elisabeth Hill
Summary: Three characters, three moments, present, past, and future. Three quick little sketches of life and undeath in Santa Carla.
1. Chapter 1

So here we are, sitting alone, on the Boardwalk steps, the lights from the fires along the beach and from the Boardwalk itself making it almost as bright as dawn. I don't know where the others have buggered off to, and I don't particularly care. They'll be back.

Out of habit, I offer Michael a cigarette, and laugh when he refuses. Kid's such a momma's boy. Oh, he might have a leather jacket, a motorbike, a piercing and some badass friends, not to mention a blood hunger that'll catch up with him in, oh, a day or two, but he still won't touch tobacco. It's almost endearing how hard he tries to be cool. Maybe that's part of the reason I didn't let Star get on with it, just kill him.

I light the thin white tube in my hand and take a long drag, feeling heat sear my lungs. Someone once told me that these things would kill me. I guess I'll take my chances.

"How do you think the world will end?"

I glance over at Michael, who's staring out at the waves. "The hell kind of question is that?"

Michael shrugs. "The first that came to mind? I hate awkward silences."

I take another pull from my cigarette. Truth is, I've given some thought to this one, since, barring some unforeseen incident, I'll probably be around to see it happen. In fact, Marko and I even have something of a bet going. He thinks the vampire population will eventually overrun the human food supply. Whereas I, I realise, blowing out a lungful of smoke into the warm night air, have no friggin' idea. My money's on a nuclear explosion, but it might just as easily be a meteorite strike, or God (if there is one) getting fed up with the world and deciding, 'Right, that's enough of you.'

"Any ideas?" Michael's finally looking at me. I treat him to a grin as I pull in another breath of burning tobacco.

"I guess it'll all just go -" I start, and then have to stop and let out the rest of the pollution lurking in my lungs before I can finish my sentence. "Up in smoke."

Michael laughs, and I can't help but notice how surprised he sounds. I should probably end it here, this charade of friendship, should probably let him know he was only ever supposed to be Star-chow. But I don't want to. I'm having more fun with this guy than I've had in the last decade. Hell, maybe I'll even help him make his first kill, instead of stringing him along to become one himself. The kid might be fun to have around.

"I don't know how it's going to end," Michael says softly, "but for some reason I think it's going to be soon." He shakes his head. "I guess I'm a fatalist."

"Nah, you're just paranoid."

Michael laughs again, that humourless half-smile twisting his face. "What's the matter?" I ask, flicking the ash from the end of my cigarette and onto a passing girl's foot. "We're all paranoid, one way or another." Paranoia's saved my sorry ass at least once, probably more.

Maybe it's all these morbid thoughts bouncing around, maybe I'm trying to make up my mind about what to do with Michael after Max is done using him as bait, maybe it's just for lack of anything else to say, but I find myself asking, "So how do you think you'll die?"

The look Michael gives me is one hundred per cent _You're joking, right?_ I take another puff and stub the cigarette out against the sole of my boot. "I'm serious."

He shrugs, the leather of his jacket bunching up around his shoulders. "Probably old and senile in a nursing home somewhere." He catches me looking at him, and demands, "What's that smirk for?"

I echo his shrug. "You never know what life's gonna throw at you." Michael Emerson won't be fading away in a nursing home anywhere. He made sure of that the night he started making eyes at Star.

"Well, how about you?"

"Huh?" I've lost the train of the conversation. Verbal irony distracted me.

"How do you think you're gonna go?"

Oh, this one I know all too well. "With a bang." I snap my fingers, which isn't easy with leather gloves on, and then fish through my coat for my packet of smokes. "Young, violently, and having too much fun for my own damn good."

Michael sighs; he sounds jealous. "You can say that again."

I pull the pack from my left-hand pocket and take out another cigarette. "It's the only way to live. Anything else is just passing time as pleasantly as possible." For a moment I think of Max, his terrible shirts and his mansion on the hill and his incessant scheming to make this ragtag group of vagabond vampires into a 'family'. It's really rather sad, though I'd never say that to his face. I haven't got that much of a deathwish.

Michael nods, as if he actually knows what I'm talking about, and then, to my surprise, reaches for the pack of cigarettes. "Maybe I'll have one of those after all."

"Attaboy." The end of my cigarette flares to crimson life before sinking into sullen ash, and I take a drag before tossing Michael the lighter. Watching him fail miserably at trying to get the end of the cancer stick to light, it's all I can do not to laugh out loud. Honestly, he tries so hard.

I've made up my mind. I don't want to miss a single opportunity to torment this guy. Let Star find another chump. And Max can have Lucy Emerson.

Michael is mine.

A thought makes me smile, even as the kid starts to cough like he's trying to bring up a lung. Soon, he'll be one of us, forever. Although, I think, glancing over to see Michael trying to pretend he didn't just react like every first-time smoker ever, he might need a little nudge. Maybe it's time to take him out hunting.

I can't wait to see his reaction.

* * *

AN: First time writing in the LB fandom. I have officially cemented my status as a fandom whore.

I don't know if this is any good. I quite like it.


	2. Chapter 2

There was a time, I reflect, when David was everything I'd ever wanted in a man.

I nearly laugh, despite how out-of-place it would sound in the middle of this fight. Boy, has that changed.

"You can't leave." He sounds dangerous when he's angry. It used to send chills down my spine. Now, it's just pissing me off.

"Didn't you hear me? I want out. I've had enough." _You're not the man I married._ I sound like a character on a third-rate soap opera. What kind of hack's writing my lines?

"You can't just leave like that, Star." There's a slap in my near future. I can hear it in his voice, in the way he says my name. "You're a half-vampire. You can't just say, 'I want out', and be human again."

"I don't care." I fold my arms across my chest, hoping it'll make me look determined and wondering where I left my jacket. It's cold in this cave, this godforsaken hole, despite the fires that provide our only light. "I don't care if I can't go back. I can't stay here, either."

He's practically tearing at that bleach-blond hair now. "Where the hell do you think you're going to go?"

"Anywhere but here!" I can't keep a slight edge of hysterical laughter from my voice. We've been having this same damn argument since a month ago. "I can't stand this place anymore, can't stand you anymore!" I stop and brush my unruly hair from my eyes – I haven't washed it in so long, god, if only the Boys had chosen a place with plumbing! – taking a deep breath in a vain attempt to calm down. "I'm going crazy here, David. I have to leave."

He collapses into that accursed wheelchair, which rolls back about a foot. He's glaring at the ceiling, refusing to look at me. "David, are you even listening?"

His eyes don't leave the ceiling.

I could shout, could demand his attention, could earn that promised slap. But I don't feel like it. So instead, even though I know he's not listening, I tell him everything. I tell him about white picket fences and green grass and plumbing and electricity. I tell him about a kitchen that gets used for more than just a place to open takeout, and vehicles where I don't have to cling to his waist in order to ride. I tell him about dead-end jobs and about college, even though that was always my parents' dream. I tell him about stability. I tell him about love. I tell him about growing up.

At one point, he groans and puts a hand to his forehead dramatically. "Aagh, you sound just like Max."

"Oh! Well, I'm so sorry to remind you of your _father figure_."

He stands up. Just stands up, and yet he manages to make it look so menacing. Once, maybe, I would have given in just then, swooned and let him carry me away to have his wicked way with me. But I'd like to think I've got slightly more dignity than that. "Do you even listen to the shit that comes out of your mouth?"

"I want someone to love me, David, someone who'd give anything to make me happy, instead of demanding everything from me."

"And just what have I demanded from you, Star?"

"Everything!"

"Everything."

"My life, for one."

"I -" He's speechless. "_You_ wanted this!"

I shake my head. "Not this! Not this squalor, not this limbo, not these endless years where nothing changes! I wanted marriage, David." Seeing the surprise on his face, I push on. "Yes, I was that old-fashioned! I wanted a husband, I wanted a home, I wanted a child! But more than that." I duck my head, not wanting him to see that I'm on the brink of tears. "I wanted you. I wanted you more than anything else. But I don't want you more than everything else put together, don't you see?"

He rolls his eyes.

I've got nothing more to say, so I turn and walk away. I've given up enough for him. If he's going to follow me, I won't stop him.

But he doesn't, and I walk clear out of the cave. I don't know where I'm going. I'm not sure what I'm doing. I just know that I can't bear to stay there for another second.

When I return, and return I do, having again persuaded myself that there's nowhere I can go except back to him, there's a towheaded blond kid playing with Paul by the fountain.

There are no words. I scream. The kid screams too, and Paul looks at me guiltily, standing quickly and pushing the kid behind his back.

This doesn't stop me. I fly at him, knowing I'm useless against a full vampire, even one as erratic as Paul, but still determined. "What the hell are you planning to do to that little boy?"

"Nothing!" Paul protests. "You weren't supposed to know he was here – shit, David'll kill me for spoiling the surprise..."

"Surprise?"

There's a rush of air from the mouth of the cave, accompanied by a sound like giant wings. I turn to see David scrambling down the incline, a look that might almost be considered apologetic on anyone else scribbled across his foxy face. "Surprise," he snarls, obviously trying to hide his discomfort. "You should consider yourself lucky. I never give gifts."

"Gifts?"

The boy's head peeks out from behind Paul's back. I curse my own selfish desires, that made me fight with David, that made me scream my hopes and dreams, that even now have me wanting to pull the boy into my arms and never let go. "No, David, you can't give me a human being! You have to take him back home."

"That's what I thought you'd say." He looks upset, as if this isn't going over quite how he hoped it would. "So I turned him."

"You what?"

"Laddie's a half-vampire. Like you."

I can't believe it. I actually cannot believe that this is really happening. I know that David doesn't think things through half as carefully as he pretends he does, that acting on rash impulse is one of the things that drew me to him and now grates on me, but I didn't think he'd go this far. No matter what happens, it'll tear the poor boy apart.

But I can't help but feel, just a little bit, grateful. Even though he does demand too much, even though it's probably a cheap trick to tie me to him further, even though he can't make right through one gesture years and years of everything being wrong, David listened. He listened, and he tried to do something for me, to make me happy.

Of course, it doesn't change things between us. Maybe if he'd relocated to somewhere with plumbing.


	3. Chapter 3

Can I tell you what it's like to finally realise that you're not fully human?

Stone-cold terrifying, that's what it is. And every so often, you'll start to forget, only to be brutally reminded again.

For me, it didn't really hit home until Sam's friends, the Rambo twins or whatever, showed up to help with (okay, plan and carry out) the raid on the cave. Oh, sure, I knew I was sleeping all day, that my reflection was slowly but surely disappearing, that I could shrug off gravity like an ugly sweater and, scariest of all, that I was getting more and more desperate for blood with each passing day. But it's easy to slip into denial when something's a secret. Hearing those two call me a vampire, the way they talked to me and, more importantly, about me, made it impossible to deny. It was like a nail in my heart, one I'd gotten used to having there, to the point where I didn't feel it anymore. But ever word was like a hammer, and let me tell you, I sure felt it as they drove the nail in.

I probably would have slipped over the edge if it weren't for those two harebrained lunatics. Don't tell them, it'll just encourage them, but if they hadn't been there, making what I was sound vulgar, wrong, disgusting, I probably would've given in to my thirst. I'd resigned myself to my fate, ignored Sam's and Star's words meant to comfort and give hope, had even begun to rationalize killing someone. It wasn't my fault, there was nothing else I could do, it was too late... But those little jerks didn't even try to spare my feelings, and I realised that for even considering the unthinkable, I didn't deserve to have my feelings spared. It was that more than anything that brought me around again. I didn't have any faith in their abilities as vampire hunters, but I didn't need to. I just needed a swift kick in the ass to wake me up again. I needed to see that I still had a choice.

And now, I realise, I made the right one.

The house is a wreck, the car through the wall and the sharpened fence posts that killed Max, as well as the subsequent explosion, having destroyed most of it beyond recognition. But our family, such as it is, is intact. I can't help but think that it's at least partially thanks to those two bozos, who even now are bragging about their kills, that we're all here and alive. I still can't believe that I got thrown from the first floor clear onto the second, through the railing, and barely suffered a scratch. Or that I fought David and didn't lose.

Oh, sure, I've acted tough for ages, ever since Sam and I found out what Dad was doing behind Mom's back. But even I can tell that I'm not half as tough as I pretend to be. I'm just a little kid playing dress-up in a biker punk's persona. Part of the reason David offered me the blood in the first place, part of the reason I accepted, was because we both knew that if it came to a fight, I would lose.

But I didn't.

I think it surprised me as much as, if not more than, it did him. Cocky bastard. I tell myself I'm glad he's gone, glad it's over, that he'll never torment me again. But I know better.

We were friends, for a while. I won't – can't – just forget that. It doesn't mean I'd take back what I did – actually, if I had the chance, I'd do it all again. But we were friends. And then, somehow, we weren't anymore. Somehow, I learned to hate him enough to kill him.

He'll always torment me now. My memories, knowing that I ended the life of someone who'd been my best friend, will follow me for the rest of my life. Maybe David did win our fight, after all. Because, when all's said and done, I only proved him right.

I am a killer.

With this realisation, icy fear grips my stomach, and I shout, unprepared for its assault. They're all on me in an instant, Sam, my mother, Star, all fussing, wondering if I'm hurt. But I'm not. If I was injured during that ordeal, it's healed already. And that's part of this new fear.

Oh God. I was still half-vampire when I killed David. And what did Sam say? You're only half a vampire...until you make your first kill.

Shit.

It feels almost like I'm drowning, and I cling to Star, desperate for air. "What is it?" she asks, worry and fear naked in her voice. "Michael, what's wrong?"

Outside, the sun begins to rise.


End file.
